Diamond Tooth Taxidermy Blog:

My frequent sidekick-in-corpse-fun just got back from a two-day fishing jaunt up in NY and brought me back a beautiful 16lb Coho Salmon form the Great Lakes. We decided that I'd come over for a BBQ and skin it so I could leave the meat with him, while we dined on dove. I guess it didn't register with me just how large 16 pounds is; when I saw it sitting in his cooler I laughed and wondered how I was going to negotiate my way around such an impressive specimen. Honestly, fish are not my forte and the ones I have mounted have been on the small side.

I adore this picture for two reasons, the first being that I'm wearing a shirt with a pig's head on it and the word "gluttony" underneath. There are so many situations when I feel like just having this shirt on makes everything more funny. Second, my hand. In school, my teacher would constantly remark and tease me about my veiny bony hands which I secretly relished. As a child I spent numerous weekends with my grandmother and my favorite part of her was her hands...I used to pray that someday I would get those same features; the thick, calloused skin and rope-like veins winding their way around the surface, over and under bones like tree roots. I love my hands because they look as strong as they are and they help me to complete such a wide array of tasks. They look more like my grandmother's with each passing year and it's one of the many little things that makes getting older so rewarding.

The first cut. Fish skin is pretty fun to work with if you can stomach the smell. It;s touch and basically impossible to accidentally rip or tear, so you can get as rough as you want.

Apparently it was spawning season and this fish was just LINED with roe! The Salmon just stop eating in the last weeks of their lives so their stomachs will shrink to make room for the eggs. That is true dedication to procreation.

We saved the eggs, of course. For caviar cat food. Did I say cat food? I meant, never mind, it's classified. But that's a LOT of eggs.

A buddy of mine went dove hunting last week and brought me back a present. This will be my second attempt at a mourning dove; the first one was a wash, a very humbling experience. This one was...slightly better.

I can't quite articulate how fond I am of these colors...I want my hair to look like this.

That is actually a wood carving by Jim Childress but it gives a nice example the color and plumage.

Skinning doves is, like I said, a humbling experience. The dermis is so thin and delicate. It doesn't seem to withstand any of the gentle pulling and manipulating that I can get away with most other birds. I wound up with my fair share of holes. Dove doilies, I guess.

After tanning and fluffing I wound up with a shell worthy of a C+, a few grades up from the D- my first one amounted to. It can be really discouraging to see how many feathers get lost while skinning or how many holes I'll have to sew up later, but I really do love the process so much that even the missteps are moments I wouldn't wish to be spared of.

Here's the breast meat, marinating in a mixture of simple syrup and lemon juice. I let it sit for two days. It was a very petite cut of flesh, but well worth fussing over.

I brought it over to a friend's house where a fish skinning event was to take place, and we barbecued the dove. As you can see it was a hit. A palette-whetter, if you will.